KALAMAZOO, MI – As the search continues for Malaysia Airlines Flight 370, the
missing plane has focused international attention on a different flight that
seemingly vanished: Northwest Orient Airlines Flight 2501, which went down over
Lake Michigan on its way to Minneapolis in 1950.

Media from CNN to the Toronto Sun to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel have noted apparent similarities between the two planes, both of which
disappeared over water without a distress signal.

The DC-4 plane with 55 passengers and three crew members crashed
into Lake Michigan, becoming at that time, the worst commercial aviation
disaster in U.S. history. Sixty-three years later, the wreckage has never been
found.

Last summer, the Kalamazoo Gazette spotlighted the crash and profiled the Michigan woman who has spent more than a decade searching for the plane off of the Lake Michigan coast. Some debris from the plane was found near South Haven.

While they've found several shipwrecks, the location of the
plane continues to elude them, Van Heest told the Kalamazoo Gazette in 2013. As part of
her research, Van Heest said she has interviewed family members of 50 of the 58
passengers.

"They're waiting for answers. It's been almost 63 years now," Van
Heest told the Kalamazoo Gazette in 2012. "That's part of what we hope to do in
finding the wreck is find answers for these people."